She must read the blog!

This morning, La Chilena was squatting for back rubs and busily nesting. Just before laying an egg, this includes tossing bits of hay over her back. Does anyone know why? Anyway, less than 24 hours after I complained about the eggless wonder, she produced a beautiful blue-green egg. And for a first egg, it's huge.

Come on, Chilena!

Our other four hens are laying eggs or sitting on golf balls. Only this bird is still not paying for her keep. Fortunately, she's gorgeous. And, when her eggs finally come, they'll be blue-green. Will they be worth the wait?

Broodiness

One of our bantams has turned broody. She gets up from her nest once/day to do all her various tasks (input/output, etc.). At that point, she's quite lively. But when she goes back to her nest, she becomes a zombie -- eyes closed or close to closed, frozen position (so much that if we lift her and put her back down with some body part in a new position, it stays there). Since we're still learning about hens, this is fascinating! Of course, without a rooster, our broody hen would just rot her eggs. And since we wanted to eat them, we took the whole clutch and left her a couple of golf balls. Apparently, anything'll do if you're broody.

For those of you who are dying to learn more, Silkies and Cochins are particularly stubborn about sitting on eggs. Our bantams are 7/8s Silkie and 1/8 Cochin. Oy! Many chicken raisers, according to the web, try to 'break up' the broody. Some experts suggest keeping her from food and water, but that seems cruel. Others say that a wire nest allowing air to come up through it or a clutch of ice cubes will move her out of this awful phase. We're not worried about this. Everyone has their little idiosyncrasy. If this is our hen's, so be it. We can't wait to see what hatches out of those golf balls!

Buffy the Vampire Layer

Here she is when she was a puppy. But we think she's now on-line in the micro-chick processing department.

2008 egg report